Every so often an event happens that causes me to refocus my emphasis on safety in the RC world. The most recent incident involved a giant-scale model and a full-scale aircraft at a local fly-in, and serves as notice in my mind that the RC community needs to ensure that all safety considerations have been addressed and remain in our collective focus at all times.

We're at a great time in our hobby. If you look back just a few short years (five are all it takes), you'll see that flying .60- size aircraft no longer means that you are limited to flying a nitro plane. You can pick virtually any .60 aircraft on the market and install your choice of nitro, electric, or 20cc gas powerplants.

Flying Styro Kits (FSK) makes a series of fantastic electric single-motor and multi-motor small scale warbird models. They’re highly prefabricated, but I do not consider them to be ARFs. I classify them as “limited-work flying model kits.” All the major and minor foam and plastic parts come painted, but it is not unusual to have to fit and trim many of the parts. I have reviewed many of these models in this magazine over the years, and they have all flown exceptionally well. My goal in this article is to show you how to rework the canopy to enhance the scale look of these exquisite models and/or make it a little easier for you to have a good-looking canopy.

One of the most challenging individual maneuvers to fly cleanly is the snap roll. It also happens to be one of the most misunderstood of the different aerobatic elements. Also known as a “flick” roll in European aerobatic circles, the snap roll shares more with the traditional spin than the conventional aileron roll. Snap and spin maneuvers share an autorotation about the roll and yaw axis caused by a stalled wing and a yaw input. Both aileron and snap rolls rotate the aircraft through 360 degrees, but that is where the similarities end. The important difference is that conventional rolls are primarily an aileron maneuver flown at a relatively low angle of attack, while snap rolls are a rudder/elevator maneuver at a very high angle of attack.

In my 19 years of flying fullsize aircraft, I have flown three types of Cessna 182s: a squaretail model from 1958; a swept verticalfn model from the mid '70s and an R182 Skylane RG with retractable gear. All three were very stable and had a lot more get-up-and-go than the 172s I had flown. I always thought the 182 was a great airplane (even though it has a nosewheel) and would make a great RC model. Parkflyers.com has turned that thought into a reality with its nicely done, sport-scale Cessna 182 500-class brushless model.

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Download a tiled plan for Dereck Woodward's VSP as featured in the March issue of Fly RC magazine. The plan consists of 30 8.5x11-inch letter size pages designed to be taped together to form a single sheet plan measuring approximately 40x60 inches. A full size printed plan will also be available soon. Watch this page for additional details. Questions should be addressed to editors@flyrc.com.